DEB sends U23 national team onto the ice

Pyeongchang (SID) A new U23 national team is intended to help German ice hockey talents make the jump to national coach Marco Sturm's senior team. Next season, the German Ice Hockey Association (DEB) will send this new selection onto the ice for the first time. “We want to give players who don’t have that much playing time in the league more international exposure,” said DEB President Franz Reindl at the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang. The German Ice Hockey League (DEL) will take a break again in February 2019. Sports director Stefan Schaidnagel is using the Olympic tournament in South Korea to win other European countries over to this idea. There are positive signals from Switzerland, he reported. Sturm should take over the management of the new team. Before extending his contract until 2022, the national coach called for the introduction of a U23 team. Schaidnagel said about the composition of the new team: "Good 18-year-olds can play there, but the majority should be between 20 and 23." A few years ago there was a similar attempt with the so-called “Top Team Sotschi”. But the project was quickly scrapped. “We want to create something sustainable,” emphasized Schaidnagel, “it can’t just be for two years.”

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DEB sends U23 national team onto the ice

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